On Tuesday (April 18), Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador accused the Pentagon of spying on the Mexican government, vowing to limit information about the country’s armed forces after a report based on leaked U.S. intelligence documents by the Washington Post.
In a daily press conference, López Obrador said, the Mexican government would be securing “information from the [U.S.] Navy” and the Department of Defense because the Pentagon is spying on Mexico’s government.
WAPO reported on Saturday (April 15) that a leaked U.S. military assessment showed Mexico’s Navy secretary had ordered officials to limit cooperation with the Mexican Military, frustrated by the possibility that the U.S. Military will be taking control of the country’s airspace.
However, the WAPO report noted that there was no indication that the information came from wiretapping of Mexican authorities.
The U.S. Military assessment is part of a bigger trove of highly classified U.S. intelligence documents that were allegedly leaked to a Discord online chat group by a member of the Massachusetts Air National Guard.
Jack Teixeira, a 21-year-old from North Dighton, Massachusetts, is accused of leaking highly Classified documents to two dozen members of a chat group that shared “memes, offensive jokes and idle chitchat.”
The documents purportedly show U.S. Military gathering intelligence about other countries, including vulnerabilities Ukraine has in the Russia-Ukraine conflict and intelligence on U.S. allies, eroding trust in the U.S.
During his Tuesday remarks, López Obrador specifically targeted the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA), accusing the agency of “informing” Mexican media to “weaken [Mexico] politically.”
